


Scientific Study

by audreycritter



Series: Cor Et Cerebrum [18]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Batdad, Fluff, Gen, Homework, Sitting Around and Talking, Some dogs, because dawn asked, no profreading we die like mne, this family is full of snark, tumblr ask
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 17:09:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9451703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/pseuds/audreycritter
Summary: Bruce hasn't helped anyone with school projects for a while.It still doesn't seem like they're getting much done.But that kinda makes for a nice evening.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DawnsEternalLight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawnsEternalLight/gifts).



> Written for Dawn in response to a tumblr ask.
> 
> I don't own DC Comics properties. I do own Kiran Devabhaktuni.

Bruce Wayne came home from work too late to do anything other than head straight to the dining room. He found Alfred alone, putting a covered platter on the table and only two place settings arranged on the placemats.

“Where is everyone?” Bruce asked, meaning mostly Damian and Cass but also any of the nearly dozen people that were prone to showing up throughout the day and staying for dinner. He pulled his chair out and sat down.

Alfred served both of them before taking the other chair and answering with a question.

“Would you prefer the full report or the abbreviated version?”

“Abbreviated,” Bruce answered, wishing he’d taken the time to change out of his suit and tie.

“Busy,” Alfred said succinctly, with a straight face.

“Maybe less abbreviated,” Bruce acknowledged with a wry nod.

“The elder boys all had plans amongst themselves; Miss Cassandra is substitute teaching a dance class; Miss Stephanie is attending an evening lecture for extra credit. Master Damian is in the library with Kiran. They requested dinner on trays.”

“Hn,” Bruce said, chewing. He swallowed. “What are they working on?”

“I believe Master Damian’s freshman research project presentation is the focus of their efforts,” Alfred said. “Beyond that, you’d have to ask them.”

Bruce narrowed his eyes. It was absolutely certain that Alfred both knew the topic of Damian’s project and was intentionally denying him the information. He sighed.

“What are your plans for tonight?”

“I thought a bottle of wine and joyriding were in order,” Alfred said calmly, sipping water.

“Take a fake ID if you do. I’d like to avoid a scandal,” Bruce said, stabbing a mouthful of salad with his fork.

“If you insist, Master Bruce,” Alfred said with a tone of resignation.

A few minutes later, Bruce stood.

“I’m going to go see what Damian is up to,” he announced. “I can take care of my plate, Al. Take the night off.”

“Very well,” Alfred nodded his head and settled back into his seat. “I won’t argue.”

Bruce stopped long enough in the kitchen to put his used dishes in the dishwasher and then he headed for the library. Damian had barely mentioned the presentation even though Bruce knew, or assumed, it had been taking a lot of his time and thought.

As a rule, school was not Damian’s favorite place, but when it came to visibility of any kind, the boy tended to be precise and thorough-- he never wanted to look stupid or ill-prepared. Bruce himself couldn’t remember how much he’d cared about the yearly presentation, only that he had cared some. One of Gotham Academy’s methods for producing high-achieving students had been for decades now to require a formal, year-long research project for each year of high school and the presentation was the first pitch to get the approval of the teachers’ board.

Bruce was fairly certain his presentations were still tucked away in a box somewhere, kept no doubt by Alfred. The older man tended not to be exceptionally sentimental but carefully catalogued and saved anything deemed important.

As he approached the library, he could hear conversation muffled through the nearly-shut door and it took him a moment to place the language as Urdu. He knocked, lightly, and pushed the door open without waiting. Alfred the cat nudged past his ankles and out into the hall.

Damian was sitting on the floor with a sketch pad, surrounded by different drawing pencils and erasers. Titus and Malcolm were asleep on the couch, and Bruce frowned but didn’t tell them to get down.

“Hullo, mate,” Dev said cheerfully, from his spot on the rug across from Damian. He had a stack of brain scans on one side and thick bundles of stapled paper on the other, and was sitting cross-legged trimming pieces of colored paper. A trifold board was propped, open, against the desk.

“How’d you get roped into this?” Bruce asked Dev, standing next to Damian so he could peer down at the sketch blooming across the page under Damian’s rapidly moving charcoal pencil.

“Roped?” Dev sounded offended, but only mildly. “I was invited. I’m here as a professional advisor.”

Bruce looked at the square of pink cardstock Dev was cutting with orange kitchen scissors.

“Professional advisor,” Bruce repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“I am conducting a study on the psychophysiological benefits of pet ownership,” Damian said without looking up or pausing in his work. The shape emerging was the profile of a dog. “I asked Dr. Devabhaktuni to assist me.”

Bruce, for a moment, felt a pang of irrational jealousy. Damian hadn’t even told him what projects he had considered, much less asked for help, and he wondered if it was his own fault for making himself or appearing unavailable.

“Bloody hell, but your school is posh,” Dev said, half to Bruce and half to Damian, while turning a right angle with the scissors. “We’d a science fair when I was in secondary and I think I did something about sugar content in fizzy drinks.”

“That seems unnecessary,” Damian said, switching pencils. “The content is labeled.”

“Honestly, I didn’t care much. I just liked being at school the extra hours. And it was an excuse to talk my mum into buying me Fanta,” Dev said with a shrug.

Damian stopped and looked up at him.

“You liked school?”

“It was bloody better than being at home,” Dev said casually, as if it was an easy thing to say. Bruce had known him long enough to know that Dev often sounded nonchalant about things that meant a great deal to admit; he didn’t know if Damian was aware of this. Damian was good at reading bodies but often missed social tone.

Bruce knew what that felt like.

“I hate school,” Damian said, resuming his sketching. Bruce sat down on the floor with them and loosened his tie. He leaned back against the couch and scratched Titus behind the ears when the dog edged his head closer to Bruce’s.

“It’s a sodding good thing I didn’t,” Dev said, switching out pieces of paper for an uncut one. “I went for over twenty years. And now I’ve the skills to trim shapes.” He grinned at Bruce and handed him a stack of cardstock. “Backing squares. Can you manage helping?”

“Maybe. Let’s find out,” Bruce said, sitting up and taking the offered paper and extra pair of scissors.

“Did she buy you the Fanta?” Damian asked in the lull that followed, the scratch of pencil and the snip of scissors filling the quiet library.

“And five others. It was brilliant. I wish it’d worked more than once.”

“Father,” Damian said, looking directly at Bruce for the first time since Bruce had entered the room. Bruce glanced up from the square he was cutting freehand. “How was your day at work?”

“No, Damian.”

“That does not answer my inquiry about your day, which was a polite–”

“Work was fine. The answer is no,” Bruce said firmly, biting back a smile. For someone so intelligent, Damian was still glaringly obvious sometimes.

Damian frowned and looked down at his sketch.

“I didn’t ask.”

“You don’t have to. I know what you were thinking.”

“We have plenty of space,” Damian protested. “I take more than adequate care of Titus and Malcolm.”

“No,” Bruce said again.

“I had nothing to do with this bloody scheming,” Dev said with a note of alarm. “Just in case I was falling under suspicion.”

“It would be beneficial for research,” Damian insisted. A normal child might whine or beg, but Damian resumed sketching and took on an authoritative tone, as if he assumed the upper hand in the discussion.

Bruce resisted the urge to sigh. He didn’t want this to turn into an argument but he also didn’t want Damian to feel unrestricted or without boundaries. He’d come a long way in the past few years but he still needed restraint.

“You could volunteer at the shelter,” Dev said, picking up the brain scan images and flipping through them. Bruce was not the kind of man to shoot off grateful looks but he hoped the slight nod he gave conveyed it enough.

“Tt,” Damian said.

Titus put his paw on the back of Bruce’s head and Bruce turned around and patted his belly. Damian sighed.

“I suppose that would be more beneficial to a greater number of animals,” he conceded.

“Call tomorrow,” Bruce said, turning back to the paper squares. He looked at the last one he’d cut. “I don’t think I’ve done this since Jay was in school.”

Years ago, that wouldn’t have been something he could bring himself to say. Even recognizing that made it feel like a difficult admission.

“What did Zombie Boy research, then?” Dev asked, as if actually curious. “He’s been sending me snarky doctor jokes for weeks now. I’d love to have some material to throw back at him.”

“Social studies project,” Bruce said. “He didn’t want to ask for help but he had a cold and kept falling asleep on the floor.”

“Weak,” Damian commented without much bitterness, more from habit Bruce thought than actual derision.

“Oi, there,” Dev said with a laugh. “Sodding big attitude from someone still small enough for children’s Tylenol.”

Bruce chuckled and reached out to tousle Damian’s hair. He half expected Damian to duck away, but he didn’t.

“Thank you both for your assistance,” Damian said stiffly, lifting the sketchpad to study the dog he’d drawn.

“It’s good,” Bruce said, looking at it with him. Damian turned quickly to look at him and there was a faint flush on his cheeks.

“Thank you,” he said again, less stiffly but far more quietly.

Dev set a brain scan image next to Damian.

“C’mon then,” he said. “You sodding promised. My office walls are far too bare.”

“What if I need a break?” Damian asked, flipping the page in the sketchpad.

“I’m merciless and demanding,” Dev answered easily. Bruce snorted and Dev ignored him.

“What’s your rate for commissions?” Bruce asked seriously. He was pleased to see the tiny quirk of a smile tugging on Damian’s face.

“I don’t know if you can afford it,” Damian answered.

“Too bad,” Bruce sighed, an exaggerated noise.

“It’ll have to be a gift,” Damian said.

Bruce nodded.

“When you have time,” he said. “School first.”

“Tt,” Damian answered, sounding amused.

“He doesn’t speak for me, mate,” Dev said, stretching out on his back on the floor. “I don’t care about your education.”

“Tea?” Alfred asked, poking his head into the room.

“I thought I told you to take the night off,” Bruce replied, turning. Alfred was in khaki slacks and a tweed jacket and a tam instead of his usual suit.

“Tea is not work,” Alfred said. “And I’m off to pick up Miss Cassandra soon.”

“Damian and I will go,” Bruce said, straightening the stack of squares with a tap against his knee. “Stay and have tea with Dev.”

“You’re just full of making bloody decisions for everyone else, aren’t you?” Dev asked without lifting his head.

“Yes,” Bruce agreed. “Any objections?”

“None here,” Alfred said. “Kiran?”

“I will go,” Damian said to Bruce, “but only if I am suitably bribed to leave my work.”

“Milkshakes?” Bruce suggested.

“Dr. Devabhaktuni, I will finish your sketch tonight,” Damian said, lining up his pencils and sliding them into a wooden case.

“Fair enough, mate,” Dev said amiably. “Tea sounds lovely.”

Bruce stood and both dogs whined. He patted them once each and the put both pairs of scissors on the desk.

“Extra whipped cream,” Damian said, his tone broaching no argument.

“Of course,” Bruce said. “Let’s go.”


End file.
